[Wii] Freeloader?

Quote:

This is the one you’ve all been waiting for! Wii FreeLoader lets you play ANY region of Wii or GameCube game on your Nintendo Wii! At last, you can import games from other territories and play them on your Wii…

Videogamers the world over get really frustrated when games are released in other territories long before they reach the shops in their home country, if they ever get released at all. You want to play that blockbuster survival horror which is out in Japan three months before it hits the shelves elsewhere. What about the soccer or F1 sim which only gets a European release or a gridiron football or NBL baseball game that’s never released outside the States? Or maybe you bought an imported Wii because you wanted to get it early, and you now want to play games from your own region without buying a second machine. Well, now you can. With Wii FreeLoader, you can play ANY region of game on your Wii!

Wii FreeLoader is really easy to use. Simply insert your FreeLoader disc and load it in the usual way. When the drive stops, eject the Wii FreeLoader disc and insert the game, which then loads and plays just like it would on its own region of Wii. It’s as simple as that!

Wii FreeLoader is 100% unofficial, but as it requires no modifications to your console, it does not invalidate the warranty. As well as letting you play Wii games from all regions, Wii FreeLoader also works with imported GameCube games when played on your Wii. It won’t work in a GameCube console, though – for that, you need Freeloader for GameCube, also available from Codejunkies…

Features

* Play ANY region of Wii or GameCube game on ANY Wii.
* Easy to use.
* No console modification required.
* Doesn’t invalidate warranty.
* Play games never released in your region.
* Play local games on your imported console.
* 100% unofficial.

* Lets PAL gamers finally play some games on their system.



Naturally everyone's shitting their pants expecting Nintendo to crush the use of it with a firmware update just like they did with the GameCube Freeloader over and over again on the Wii, but hey! I think Datel would have kinda been expecting that by now, so this may have some mystery magic in it to get past that junk. Comes out in like two weeks or something, you can order it from Datel's Code Junkies site for £9.99 ($20 US). They only accept credit cards though which is shit. ='( Plus there's the whole you'll probably get screwed being an early adopter with something like this. Oh, and judging by the first bullet point in their exciting list, this Freeloader will work on any system. Unlike the GC one, which was sold in PAL and NTSC formats.

I wish Datel all the best, if only because Nintendo Europe's pretty much officially the slowest bunch of twits out there. I'm talkin' 'walkin' into closed doors and wondering why they're not getting anywhere' style slow. Much smaller publishers are getting PAL games out within days of the American release, even extremely text-heavy games! Yet NoE takes four months for Excite Truck, or seven months for that fucking Pokemon Battle Revolution game that has a whopping one sentence in it "that attack was super nintendo!".

I will consume ALL the Simple Series on Wii!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'll get it if it supports Naruto 4. That will give me a good reason to put away my GCN. Then again, I might as well just buy that Japanese Wii sequel instead.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I'd be surprised if Nintendo did crush this too quickly. After all, the DS is region free so they aren't anti the idea of cross region gaming and let's face it, it's only a matter of time before everyone who rushed out to buy a Wii realises that once they're bored of Wii Sports there's nothing else to play on it.

I can't see them selling many copies of PAL Brawl if this gets a good take up though, given that the predicted launch date is still sometime in 2019 or something.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Handheld systems have always been region free, so I wouldn't rely on that logic.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Shin

I can't see them selling many copies of PAL Brawl if this gets a good take up though, given that the predicted launch date is still sometime in 2019 or something.

I don't know... I used to double-dip games I'd imported sometimes on the Gamecube, because the disc-swapping involved in using the Freeloader was a bit of a pain compared with directly booting a domestic game.

For an RPG where you play once, complete the game and then likely never touch it again, it's fine. For something like SSB where you could be booting it daily for a couple of years, it's a pain in the arse.

With regards to the topic, this is probably the thing that will finally tip me into getting a Wii, if the disc continues to work for a while.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Think of it this way, the more people easily obtain a Freeloader (one that doesn't become useless in a week), the more likely they are to buy legit games (even if they do import), ergo the less likely they are to modchip their console and thus have access to warez.

I am seriously getting this as soon as it's confirmed not to crap out on you when something (anything) is updated. I don't even have a Wii yet and I know I'll have plenty of use for this. I still love my GC Freeloader, and I only had like three US games and one jap game I used it on. STILL GREAT <3

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

gonna get it for my friend.


Don't need it for myself (hello, twilight hack)

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Qwarky

Think of it this way, the more people easily obtain a Freeloader (one that doesn't become useless in a week), the more likely they are to buy legit games (even if they do import), ergo the less likely they are to modchip their console and thus have access to warez.

That's an excellent point. There are solutions for the Sega Saturn and the Gamecube that allow imports but don't allow pirate copies. The equivalent on most other systems permits you to load illegally copied games. It's a shame that importing and piracy are tied together this way.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

If only they came out with this a few weeks earlier, then I could've indulged in Brawl. But it's coming out in more or less than a week, so...

I'll probably get it if I find something worth importing on the Wii. Can't think of anything right now.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by ^-^

Don't need it for myself (hello, twilight hack)

You mean the hack that can only play homebrew?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

So far.

It's not clear what hardware access we can get through that yet, though.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Shin

I can't see them selling many copies of PAL Brawl if this gets a good take up though, given that the predicted launch date is still sometime in 2019 or something.

Well, either way it's still money in their pocket, right?

I mean granted, there's a potential for loss in all the effort of making PAL versions, but like others have pretty much said, better this than the path of pirating, right?

If NoE hasn't figured out yet that much of their audience is rather disillusioned, maybe this will do it.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Well I find two problems with the Freeloader and one has already been mention. The other problem is that some game REQUIRE an "in-game" update in order to play the game. Like for Brawl, it doesn't matter if you have the latest firmware, it will need to install something in order for the game to run. If the freeloader bypass/skip over the update it need, the game will not load (unless the freeloader does something that will check the disc for the necessary update file and install it there to which I doubt).

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'm not sure why, but a lot of people seem to be connecting the announcement of Wii Freeloader with the new homebrew Trucha Signer (which allows you to take updates out of Wii isos, then burn them again with Wii signatures). How does this have anything to do with Freeloader?

Anyways, I'm getting this if people report being able to play Smash (and avoid Wii updates). Screw PAL release dates.

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Originally Posted by Infernal Monkey

* Lets PAL gamers finally play some games on their system.

Uh huh. =(

I was briefly swayed towards buying this and playing the US No More Heroes, but really, I don't think the censorship of the PAL bothers me enough to import.

FELIPE NO

It's apparently shipping already.

ORDERED LIKE WHAT

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

It can't play backups right?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by chaofan

I'm not sure why, but a lot of people seem to be connecting the announcement of Wii Freeloader with the new homebrew Trucha Signer (which allows you to take updates out of Wii isos, then burn them again with Wii signatures). How does this have anything to do with Freeloader? ...

If you look at it, it's most likely Datel use that program to create the Freeloader. They have the source to pressed their own disc and using that program they are able to make one (er, massive pressing the disc).

If they created the Freeloader, oh say, before the Trucha Signer and/or the release of Brawl in Japan, then it would be a different story (and not to mention the Japaense version of Brawl would had sold more copies).

If a new Wii firmware update stop the Freeloader AND Trucha Signer from running on the Wii at the same time it mean they had been using the same Wii signatures exploit.

How ya doing, buddy?

Oh ho.

Quote:

With the announcement of the Freeloader for Wii, more questions have been raised about how exactly the disc will run, how firmware updates will be handled and more. Thanks to an email sent to Datel, more information has surfaced. According to the developers, when a foreign disc is inserted it disables the console from being able to update its firmware.

Also huuuuuge box art!



No access to a credit card and no PayPal whatever sucks. =') I'm thinking of putting down a pre-order on that Play-Asia site (along with Brawl) and doing a direct bank transfer thinga-ma-jig.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

...that doesn't stop the internet sending the download to you...

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Conan-the-3rd

...that doesn't stop the internet sending the download to you...

What?

Most amazing jew boots

HMMMMMM.

Quote:

• WII FREELOADER IGNORES ALL REGION-CODING.
• WII FREELOADER IGNORES ALL WII UPDATES ON A WII GAME DISK (INCLUDING SUPER SMASH BROS. BRAWL).
• WII FREELOADER IGNORES THE NECESSITY OF CHECKING FOR GAME UPDATES; THUS ALLOWING THE GAME FILES TO BE PLAYED SAFELY WITHOUT ANY RISK OF BRICKING YOUR WII CONSOLE.
• CODEJUNKIES STAFF HAVE CONFIRMED TO ME, BY PHONE, THAT IF A WII FIRMWARE UPDATE SOMEHOW BLOCKS THE WII FREELOADER, THEY WILL SEND YOU AN UPDATED WII FREELOADER FREE OF CHARGE WHEN ONE IS CREATED, AS LONG AS YOU HAVE PROOF OF PURCHASE OF YOUR ORIGINAL COPY OF WII FREELOADER.

CAPITAL LETTERS.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

So if playing an import game requires the Freeloader to somehow bypass firmware updates (which I assume do more than simply block Freeloader), wouldn't that make your console a lot more unstable? Does using Virtual Console require you to keep your firmware up to date?

FELIPE NO

Last time I checked, it did. At one point, I couldn't even enter the store without it telling me I needed up go update.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I don't see any titles in the future which would make me want to update (yet).

As far as I'm concerned, once I get Smash, my Wii will only go online for brawlan purposes. I might be coaxed into updating if a new Zelda comes out or summat.

Jam it back in, in the dark.